Ahmed Tinubu, National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC has asked the Federal Government to reverse the planned increase in Value Added Tax, VAT as it will be a further burden for the less privileged citizens of the country.
Tinubu who stated this Thursday this at his 67th birthday colloquium held in Abuja also advised to government to ensure that all those Nigerians who have refused to pay their tax are made to do so as a way of boosting revenue for government to carry out developmental projects.
The APC Leader said increasing VAT at this stage will not help the ordinary man in the country, stressing that those incharge of generating revenue for the country must begin to think of other sources of revenue.
Tinubu also called on President Buhari to work seriously on providing good governance particularly in the area of economic growth in his second term to improve the well being of Nigerians who gave him second term despite mounted opposition.
He urged President Buhari to implement bold economic reforms if the administration is to be able to pull the nation from poverty and penury.
“Mr. President, you have gone far these past few years in laying a good foundation for the economic recovery of the country. We shall go farther still so that Nigeria truly reaches the next level with you leading the way.
“The Next Level must be seen as part of this global and historic dynamic. Our pursuit of the Next Level cannot be achieved by blindly following the economic path of other nations.
“We must construct our Next Level on a progressive ideology and vision that will take our people out of penury, diversify our economy more aggressively, and empower and retrain our youth.
“To be the great nation we purport to be, we must reform and retool our economy according to our definition of what is best for our own people. We cannot assign that duty to anyone else”.
“Here, I must ask for a little liberty to amend the fine title of this colloquium: “Work for the people.” We must do more than simply work for the people. Government must work for the people in a way that enables them to better work for themselves.
“We must amend our basic ideas about the economy. We must divorce ourselves from our fixation with GDP rates and similar statistics. These things were initially intended to be indicators, suggestive measurements. However, we have misinterpreted these road maps by treating them as if they were the destination itself. This has caused us to distort the organic relationship between the people and the economy
“To pull the nation from poverty, government must play a decisive role. It must at times direct and even develop markets and opportunities. This is nothing novel. I am only restating what the established economies did when they were young and assumed their trajectories toward growth.
“This dominant train of thought has made the people servants to the dictates of abstract economic theories. In a more effective system, the economy would be fashioned to serve the concrete needs and legitimate aspirations of the people.
“Our economy must be redefined to be an efficient yet moral social construct with the primary goal of optimizing the long-term welfare of the people through the sustained, productive and full employment of labour, land, capital and natural resources.
“Like no Nigerian government before, I believe the second administration of President Buhari shall dedicate itself to changing the very structure of our economy for the better. You have enhanced our democratic and economic discourse at a moment when such public discussion is greatly needed.
“The single most important sector for the government’s focus is infrastructure. The most important of our infrastructural demands is power. This has been the greatest discovery of humanity in the last thousand years.
“Affordable and reliable power will drive the industrialization that shall provide jobs in our cities and produce needed goods for all our people. I believe the second Buhari administration will work to increase electricity generation, transmission and distribution by more than 50 percent within the next 4 years.
“We require serious and bold reforms to achieve this. What is happening to our gas pipelines? Whatever we have to invest now for our future is a task that must be done boldly. The PDP administration shared out generation, distribution and transmission to their friends and cronies without very deep and thoughtful research and evaluation. It has now become pork chops. This privatisation must be revisited. Put experts together for a more constructive reform to improve generation, transmission and distribution by any means necessary. We cannot afford to be too legalistic about this.
“Also, we should push to end the practice of billing people for electricity they never received. This practice is a vestige of the past that should not accompany us into the future. A person should be charged accurately and only for the power that they use.
“Government should continue to aggressively implement its national infrastructure plan. We must commit ourselves to a national highway system linking our major cities and towns, our centres of commerce, with each other. This will save lives, spur commerce, cut costs and bring Nigerians closer together.
“Water catchment and retention systems in strategic locations should also be introduced to end the destructive cycles of flood and drought affecting many areas.
“In working to transform the face of our economy, government must also enact policies that encourage industrialization and modern agricultural practices. We must applaud President Buhari for the historic innovations made in the agricultural sector. We must further encourage him to do even more. Government funded social security for the aged and government backed affordable housing and mortgage facilities are things we must continue to explore in an aggressive manner”, he said.
Earlier the Vice President, Osinbajo said the Buhari administration is determined to implement infrastructural projects considered as critical to its Next Level agenda.
The Vice President said as the leader of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Tinubu successfully reclaimed control of some states in the SouthWest zone by using forensic evidence to void the governorship elections in the courts.
In his welcome address, Lagos state governor, Akinwumni Ambode described Tinubu as a man of undoubted courage and political dexterity.
He said the birthday colloquium came at the appropriate time when the APC-led administration is on the verge of harnessing initiatives to enable it deliver on the Next Level promises made to Nigerians during the last general election.
James Kwen, Abuja
